The man who made "Psycho" was no lightweight, though he kind
of comes off that way in "Hitchcock."

Starring Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock and Helen Mirren
as his wife and collaborator, Alma, "Hitchcock" puts a featherlight yet
entertaining touch on the behind-the-scenes struggle to make the mother of all
slasher films.

Hitchcock's very dark side gets superficial treatment as the
film offers the cinematic equivalent of psychobabble to explore the director's
notorious gluttony, sexual repression and idolization of his leading ladies.

Though shallow, "Hitchcock" has a playful quality that often
makes it good fun, its spirit of whimsy a wink that the filmmakers know they're
riffing on Hitchcock's merrily macabre persona and not examining the man with
any great depth or insight.

"Hitchcock" is a promising move into dramatic filmmaking for
director Sacha Gervasi after his 2009 documentary "Anvil: The Story of Anvil,"
a chronicle of heavy-metal wannabes who never quite made it. With screenwriter
John J. McLaughlin adapting Stephen Rebello's book "Alfred Hitchcock and the
Making of Psycho," Gervasi spins a nimble tale of a genteel yet volatile genius
turning water into wine as Hitchcock transforms a tawdry story inspired by
murderer Ed Gein into high art — and one of the scariest movies ever.

Fresh off a big success with 1959's "North by Northwest,"
Hopkins' Hitchcock lapses into the sort of funk that repeated itself throughout
his career as he floundered about in search of his next film. He defies the
expectations of Paramount executives and his own colleagues, Alma included,
when he settles on Robert Bloch's novel "Psycho," the Gein-influenced story of
Norman Bates, a soft-spoken mama's boy whose creepy double life leads to
multiple murders.

"Hitchcock" strains to play up marital strife between the two
as Alma feels tempted by a writing colleague (Danny Huston), while Alfred's
frustrated fancies continue over his long string of Hitchcock blondes — in this
case, "Psycho" co-stars Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) and Vera Miles
(Jessica Biel) — the latter standing with Grace Kelly among his greatest
fixations.

The film also strays into Freudian fantasies as the specter
of Gein himself (Michael Wincott) pops up to help Hitchcock work through his
issues. These moments are clunky devices that offer no understanding of
Hitchcock and his demons; at best, they're good for a chuckle here and there.

And while the filmmaker-at-work moments are similarly
frivolous, it's wicked fun watching Hopkins' Hitchcock as cruel taskmaster,
using whatever figurative cattle prods he can find to trick or cajole what he
wants out of his actors.

Hopkins is padded to match Hitchcock's portly silhouette, yet
the jowly prosthetics applied to his face are a bit distracting and
unrealistic. They don't make Hopkins look much more like Hitchcock; they just
make him look like Anthony Hopkins with prosthetics on his face.

Still, the spirit of Hitchcock comes through in Hopkins' sly
performance, and he captures the measured cadence of the filmmaker's speech
even though he doesn't sound much like Hitchcock, either.

Mirren has the easier task in inhabiting Alma, bringing
fierce intelligence to Hitchcock's wife without the handicap of playing someone
whose image, voice and mannerisms the audience knows so well.

The supporting players are there just for the joy of it,
though Johansson turns out to be surprisingly good casting as Leigh, physically
resembling the actress whose "Psycho" character gets snuffed in the famous
shower scene and also doing a nice impersonation of Leigh's speaking style and
demeanor. Likewise, James D'Arcy is an eerie dead ringer as jittery Anthony
Perkins, who played the killer Norman.

Behind horn-rimmed glasses and a stiff hairdo, Toni Collette
is a delight as Hitchcock's assistant, putting great heart and humor into her
handful of scenes.

If "Hitchcock" ultimately feels inconsequential, it always
aims to please, and for the most part, it does. As Alma says at one point, even
"Psycho," after all, was just a movie.